JavaJane

We sold ours (cash for gold!!) and got about $25.00. Funny thing is the girl behind the counter asked if we were involved in twi! Weird... Even weirder? Turns out my dad witnessed to her 20 or so years ago and she went to twig for a year or two until they told her she was possessed and kicked her out.

Even stranger? We are in a completely different part of the country from where this happened.

The bikers around here go to the funerals and park in front of the protestors, effectively blocking them from bothering the greiving families. When the protesters start chanting the bikers rev their bikes to drown them out. It's sad they even have to do that, but free speech comes into play...

Exie, you crack me up!!

BWA-HA-HA-HA-HA!!!

(Click on the evil laugh above)

These are the guys that protest at servicemen and women's funerals carrying signs that read stuff like "God hates fags" and "God hates America." Jerks.

Don't dish it if you can't take it.

TWI is a bizarre combination of the occult and fundamentalist Christianity... makes for a nasty cocktail.... Gives people a false sense of power, and at the same time a false extremely inflated (and twisted) sense of right and wrong.

Good God! Don't get near me on an emotional Oprah day! Oh! And the SPCA commercial with Sarah McLachlen singing....OMG! That one gets me too! I HATE to see or hear about animal abuse.

OMG!!! I HATE THAT COMMERCIAL! When I was pregnant, I would have to leave the room until it was over because I was 5,000,000x more emotional than I am now due to all the hormones and everything.

And as for jury duty - I would be in the same boat, Notta! I am such a wuss when it comes to ANYTHING involving kids!

But what is so cool, is how our Father got us through it all, we always knew our Father was with us, and our Father is still with us, that is so cool. That always gives me a good feeling, that Yahweh is mindful of us, and ours.

yes, you are right! God got us out and found us in the midst of all our hurts!

And exie - all your hugs are appreciated - I'm hugging you back!

Teach, I am so sorry that happened to you!!

I grew up in twi from my tweens onward... so, during those emotional and turbulent times of adolescence and young adulthood, I learned to make myself emotionally numb through the teachings of twi on controlling your emotions, and renewing your mind. I only allowed myself to feel what I was supposed to feel. I cut off all empathy, and I didn't allow emotions like sadness, regret, guilt, or even hurt feelings into my mind. I just pushed them back down whenever I would feel them.

The only negative emotion I allowed myself to feel was anger... Good old "spiritual" anger - because it was acceptable to be angry. And anger feels better than sadness. I would tell myself when I would begin to feel sad or lonely or bad in any way that it was because of the adversary, so I would change it to anger at the adversary (or the person who caused the hurt - as long as they weren't in the household... and I would definiately change it to anger if it was a LEADER in the household that hurt me.) It boils down to emotional lying.

A few years before I left I started having anxiety attacks, and crying for no discernable reason - like at commercials on TV late at night... I think it was just all those years of emotions coming back to the top.

Now that I am out, sometimes I have an emotional reaction to something and it sticks with me for a long time... especially if it has to do with having empathy towards another. Earlier today, there was a post here on GreaseSpot that mentioned the children and parents at Jonestown drinking the poisoned KoolAid.... I am still upset when I think about those poor children and their parents. It's like I have exposed nerves or something. It used to be that I would just hide all those feelings away by reasoning that those people deserved what they got by being involved in that group. I would think the same thing about stuff on the news. I had distanced myself from others, I was detached... and now it's like I have all these emotions and sometimes I don't know how to handle them at all.

Then again, maybe I'm more normal now.... Or maybe I am emotionally stunted in my maturity because during the formative years of my life as a teen I just never let myself feel anything...

Anyone else out there go through this stuff??

I like you, socks! Great post!

They don’t believe that abundant sharing is the best investment of their money they could possibly make. Why gamble in the stock market, when the greatest investment, return, is sharing their abundance with The Way Ministry? The greatest return, documented, comes back with their investment in The Way Ministry. Yet people don’t really believe that. I think some of this is why they still don’t believe it yet, because you’re allowing the adversary to still cut their blessings off. I think this is the greatest reason why we don’t see the signs and wonders we should be seeing. It’s financial lying.

Hmmmmmm....... DOCUMENTED?? Seriously?

And isn't that $54,000,000.00 mostly tied up in STOCKS?

Good thing Rosie wasn't paying attention in this meeting - she was probably playing footsie under the table with Donna.

Thanks for the encouragement, guys!! You all have helped me out a lot - from the time I first started questioning twi until now. Once, again, THANK YOU!

Not to my knowledge. However, they love to pontificate about whose fault it is for this or that happening. Usually tracing back to some "sin" that someone did that caused it.

I have heard the verse taught where it says that the sins of the father will be visited upon the children and had the example of WC who left having terrible things happen to their children... I ALWAYS thought that was messed up. And I also had WC tell me that because my parents were called to be WC, that I had to have been called as well.

Not sure if that is what we are referring to or not... In any case, it was just a method of control.

Now I know why my limb coordinator's wife got so angry with me when I bought her kid an icecream when we were at the mall one day on a witnessing gig... (the daughter was the other half of my two by two).

Geez. Devil Spirit flavored Ice Cream...

Thanks, Sir Guess... I have also heard that raccoons don't like cucumbers... Next year I will probably plant those at the base of the feeder and let them use the stake as a trellis. I have planted a lot of flowers that the hummingbirds love, and now that they are open they are enjoying those as well as the feeder. I so enjoy my hummingbirds - they have no fear at all... Yesterday I was outside on the deck where the feeder is and they were feeding less than 18 inches away from me... and then they started dueling. Such little warriors!!!

For the majority of my life I was defined by TWI because it was my identity. I was involved for over 20 years, from my tweens until my mid thirties... So, for me, I am now finally NOT defining myself by the twi deception. I first started posting here because I needed help, a LOT of help, to overcome twi's influence during those formative years of my life. Am I bitter? Sometimes. When I ask my husband to pray and he says he has had enough of praying, and when I sit in church and have what I know might be a hardness of heart against anyone in a position of authority within a religious organization simply because all of them are suspect of the same things twi leadership did to me and my family. And sometimes when I think about my brother who was thrown out of the house at the age of 16 and who ended up addicted to drugs, an alcoholic, and just got out of prison AGAIN... And when I think about the distance between my family members - not just physican distance, but an emotional distance caused by a lack of trust due to twi... And when I look back and realize I was capable of abandoning all of them, that I walked away and turned my back on those closest to me based on a LIE told by twi....

Yeah, I get bitter.

But other than that, I am over it... I think. Maybe... Probably not...

I talked with someone recently that I hadn't spoken to in years who was involved in twi - he said it took him as long to recover as it took him to be involved. I said, "GREAT. I still have like 17+ years to go!!!"

As far as "defining myself", for me that process has just started. I was raised in twi, and since experiences mold the person, I am in a way, "defined" by these experiences. BUT, I got out. I am raising a child WITHOUT twi. I have a successful marriage WITHOUT twi. I have a relationship with God WITHOUT twi. I have hobbies, and friends WITHOUT twi. And my family relationships are being REDEFINED WITHOUT twi.

And these are good things. Maybe at some point I will grow to the point that I no longer think about their deception, but that point may never completely come.

So, if I seem bitter, be patient. I went through hell. I hurt people. I was hurt. I know I am capable of being both the abused and the abuser. Oh well... I'm happier now.

(And I don't mean to say the rest of you are being hard on people like me, I applaud your mental state and who you have become. Your kind has helped me immensely!!!!!!)

Now, where is that waiter??

I heard a Christian psychologist on the radio today quoting a verse from Psalms where God says He'll teach you things during the night. This guy said he often asks his clients about their dreams because there's a lot more to them than just nonsense. He says it can be God teaching you things about life. Does anyone know what verse this guy is talking about and if so, if that is the true meaning?

I agree, God designed us to dream, and I think He does communicate with us through dreams. If I stop and think about the symbolism in my dreams, oftentimes I can understand things in my life better - whether this is from God, or if it is from God in the way I was fearfully and wonderfully made doesn't matter so much to me, I am just thankful for the insight.

No, it was a huge sign that it had no respect or reverence for the husband/wife relationship, and it taught that to the married people. I mean, is it really normal to house married people long-term in bunk rooms in the US? Is it really normal to force married people to abstain, sneak, or pretty much resort to openly copulating?

We have only shared a room with another couple (ex-corp) once in our entire marriage, and it was mostly to help them out. I said never again.

I always thought this was ridiculous. I also remember that when I asked about it, I was told it was a "modern" thing for married couples to sleep alone. I was given the example that "Uncle Horndog" Howard slept in a one room house with his aunt and uncle, who would have sex there in the same room as the kids. This (I was told) was actually more normal and healthy than having people separate.

Yuck.

I'm praying here, too, Abi. I had migraines for years and it was horrible. I did find out that mine was a reaction of aspartame in sugar free stuff, and because I was drinking diet soda at the time, I was miserable. Now I have to be really careful because aspartame is in things that aren't sugar free - like cereals, some breads, almost all chewing gum and mints, coco mixes, etc. Splenda does the same thing to me. I can tell if something has it in it within 5 minutes of eating a bite because I get an instantaneous headache even now. This is a pretty common side effect of aspartame, so if he is drinking any diet sodas or anything else sugar free or reduced calorie, or even chewing gum occassionally, you might want to consider removing it from his diet. It took about four days for my headaches to stop once I cut all the aspartame out of my diet.

I will keep him in my prayers.

I wonder if the slow economy is exposing the psycho-babble of "the law of believing" in The Way International? Just seems like another small exodus in the making......?

With 112 pages in this forum About the Way.....Everything You Always Wanted To Know about The Way International (and Sex) But Were Afraid To Ask.

:)

I'm sure they are spinning it as "our believing and teaching on debt is what has kept the entire nation from complete collapse! If you had heeded the warning we gave years prior to the recession to GET OUT OF DEBT, you wouldn't be in over your head on your house right now... etc etc."

Freedom - freedom to think your own thoughts, freedom to study what you would like from OTHER books than just TWI approved materials (or not study at all!), freedom to define yourself, freedom to express yourself, freedom from trying to convert everyone, freedom to live without having a "coordinator"...

freedom to ENJOY your life - I mean REALLY enjoy your life.

I thought I was happy in twi. I wasn't. I just told myself that to keep myself in bondage.

So far the motion activated sprinkler has proved to be a good deterrant for the raccoon. It's been up for a week, and the feeder hasn't been drained yet!

And they make fun of the Catholic monks and nuns who take a vow of poverty in order to help their spiritual journey. Basically it's the same thing - except the nuns and monks know that the Church will take care of them.

Praying here, Paw.

I had a new one last night... I was in the auditorium (and you were there, and you, and you....) and I had decided to leave twi before I got there. I had also informed my leadershi this was the last event I would attend. I was there with my iPhone playing games during the service because I was so bored, but I was trying not to let the light from the screen be seen by anyone so I wouldn't get in trouble. After the service, I went out into the lobby where a bunch of my old Way D team were. I was trying to get past them without having to stop for conversation because if they asked me where I was going after the service I would have to tell them the truth - that I was leaving twi, and I didn't want to have that conversation. One of my Way D sisters caught up with me and asked the dreaded question. I informed her I was leaving twi - that it didn't mean I didn't love her, and it didn't mean that I thought she was a bad person. Another person from my past came up and asked, and I explained it to him as well. And another and another. Soon I was surrounded by the believers going all the way back to my first fellowship, and I could tell by the way they looked at me that I was a disappointment. That they thought I was possessed. Then they turned their backs on me and walked away, looking over their shoulders occassionally at me as they whispered to themselves. Some of them were crying.

I just walked out, packed up my stuff, and left them behind, knowing they thought I was a terrible person - even worse than a terrible person - they thought I had given myself to the devil and turned my back on God, that I had become evil.

Edited to add what I just remembered - there were coyotes outside the auditorium, black coyotes that running in circles around a weak mangy puppy that was trying to get into the auditorium for shelter. But no one saw the puppy but me, and I knew there was no way I could help it because I needed to get out of where it was trying to get in.

One of the most freeing aspects of not being involved with twi anymore is that I feel no need to try and convince anyone of anything, including the existence of God and Jesus Christ (I do believe in both and consider myself a Christian.) I believe that everyone has the right to believe what they will. After being involved with an organization that I was convinced had THE ONE TRUTH and then seeing the lies, corruption, lust, and hypocrisy it was really based on, I no longer feel that my own fallible mind can say with any authority that my belief system is better than anyone else's. God can do the convincing. I just try and let the Creator's goodness live in my life. If someone wants to know what that goodness is about, I can tell them, but I no longer feel the need to convince them of anything.